Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Good morning to everyone who’s logged on to one of our online channels, Facebook, YouTube. Good to have you with us this morning. Happy Wednesday.
God is not far off…
God’s presence is here. He’s always faithful to meet us here, isn’t He? To meet you where you are this morning online. I want to encourage you that God is not far off. He is right with us. He’s in us! If you’ve professed Jesus, He’s for us and He is working. The Bible says He doesn’t sleep nor slumber. He is active and alert. His Spirit is functioning and working and organizing and doing things you can’t see. But the more you know Him, the more you discover His character, His nature as we sang about His faithfulness, the more you can draw that deep breath and exhale and rest and know that you serve a loving, dotting Heavenly Father who has got you and got your situation and your family and that need that you have.
He’s not going to let you down. He’s not going to abandon you. The Bible is very clear that He’s not left us here on this earth as orphans. But that He will come to us, that He is near. He’s right with us. Amen. He’s in us, in fact. If we embrace and understand the full import of the message of the Gospel and what Jesus did, that He might live in us. And one of the things that I’m so blessed by when it comes to prayer is actually something found in Hebrews 4:16. But I’m going to start in verse 14.
Hebrews 4:16–16…
It reads, “Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness.”
In other words, He understands. He’s very empathetic with what you’re dealing with, what you feel, what you’re going through, what’s not happened, what you were disappointed about. Where you experience weakness, He understands. That’s good.
In other words, He’s not some far-out-there ethereal, cosmic deity who’s on an endless power trip. No! He experienced what we experienced. He came to this earth, right? Jesus went through what we went through, lived a sinless life, and conquered the weakness that we might be experiencing, conquered the temptation that we might be confronted with later today. Conquered sickness for that matter… need insufficient, He conquered. He was made poor, that you might be made rich. He conquered everything that is ahead of us or that we’ve gone through in this life’s journey.
But be of good cheer…
And He said, “Yes, there’ll be tribulation,” to His disciples. And tells us through the narrative of scripture. He said there’ll be tribulation, there’ll be tough times, there’ll be challenges, there’ll be opportunities to give up, to throw in the towel, to be tempted. But be of good cheer! He said, “For I have overcome, I have conquered.” I like to say have given the enemy… given that temptation… given that sickness… given whatever that is you’re dealing with a “beat down.” I’ve beaten it down. I’ve defeated it. So be of good cheer for I’ve overcome it and I’m in you to equip you. We’re not here on our own, alone, even doing prayer this morning. He is with us. There is a fire kindling on the inside of you.
A word of exhortation—the Fire of God has not gone out!
Can I just prophesy that right over you this morning? Right in the midst of your family, your church, your ministry, your business this morning, the fire of God has not gone out. The fire of God is the Holy Spirit, and He is active and alert, watching over His Word to perform it in your life. The Holy Spirit is moving and brooding over your soul today, over your interior life today, kindling a new fire, drawing your attention to the fact that you aren’t alone, you aren’t unable. You are no longer the old self you used to be. But in fact, you have dunamis power, exceeding great power available… exceeding great and precious promises available. And there’s great power toward you if you will simply believe and acknowledge the fact that He is with you. You are one with Him and He is one with you. Amen.
His throne is a throne of grace…
Hebrews 4 goes on to say “A high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, He can. But was at all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly…” Somebody say “boldly” on this Wednesday morning. Come on now! Sometimes you got to just draw from that holy fire within you and let your voice resonate with the words of God… with the words of life. “Let us come boldly to the throne of grace.” So His throne is not a throne of judgment or angry-looking eyes at you. His throne is the throne of grace in every season and every time. Each and every day He says, “My child, come to Me, come boldly to Me.”
There’s no questions or needs at the throne…
And I love this passage, because it reminds me of two things you always receive when you pray (and for that matter, when we worship). Two things. Always, every time, without fail, you can expect to receive when you give yourself to prayer, when you come into His presence, when you lift up holy hands in worship. For that matter, when you open up your heart and let your vocal chords resonate with faith decrees and the promise of God, the Bible says you can understand and know that when you come boldly to that throne of grace—that throne of answers. Notice there’s no questions at the throne. There’s no need at the throne. There’s no looks of consternation “Oh my! I didn’t know this was going to happen. What are we going to do?” from the angels or the Holy Spirit. No. It’s a throne of grace.
The two things you find at the throne are mercy and grace…
It goes on to say “that we may obtain mercy and find grace.” So the first thing we always receive when we pray is mercy. In other words, He embraces us. He loves us. He forgives us. He wants to help us. He wants us just to be saturated with His love and His kindness and His mercy. Sometimes that’s all that is needed when you’ve got a hard edge on you. When your heart is hardened because of sin or challenges or the pollution of everyday life that we experience. He just wants His love and grace just to saturate us. It goes on to say, “that you may find 1) mercy, 2) find grace to help in time of need.”
“Well, what’s Grace, Ken?”
Well, I’m glad you asked. Grace is simply empowerment that makes you strong where you are weak. So even as I’m talking this morning, as we worship, as we go along today, I want you to have an expectation that regardless of the challenge or the yet to be seen answer to your prayer or the end of your faith, that you aren’t receiving today, and you will receive tomorrow, grace and mercy.
God’s grace actually grows and swells…
The Bible says that God’s grace has a dynamic woven into it, such that it actually grows and swells. The worse things get, the more the symptoms flare up, the more your mind tries to tell you it’s not going to happen, the Bible says if you will come to Him, you’ll receive mercy and grace. And that the dynamic of grace is such that it swells, it grows, it multiplies.
We’re going “through” this season, we’re not going “under”…
So what if the Devil’s turned up the volume on his harassing thoughts and negative insinuations! So what if a bad report happens today! Glory to God! Because guess what? God’s grace has an opportunity to swell and swallow up even the Devil’s best attempts because we’re going through this season. We’re not going under. You’re not going to drift away aimlessly into the night. You’re not going to just have to “hold on” until Jesus returns. We, the church, you as an individual, are in our hour and in the right generation, and you are where God intends you to be as far as on planet earth in such a time as this. You may not be experiencing the fullness of His promise and what you see in your heart, but it ain’t over yet! Excuse my English! He’s not through with you yet. He’s not done with the church. Yes, the hour is late. And yes, the end will come eventually. But while there is daylight, the Bible echoes, we must set our hand to the work of God.
What is the work of God?
It begins by believing. It begins by laboring or working to enter into rest, into a fuller knowledge and understanding of who we now find ourselves to be in Him. And what He’s called us to do. Because His destiny for you must be fulfilled. His destiny for Living Word, for your ministry, your church, your household must be realized and furthered and accomplished.
Paul ran his race to hear “Well done thou good and faithful servant”
Paul, when you read after him, seemed to be excited about the fact that he was running a race of faith and that there would come a day when he would break the tape and run and complete his race and hear “Well done thou good and faithful servant.”
I’m here to tell you this morning that you’re going to see that. You’re going to experience that in the intermediaries of life where you’re believing for an answer, for a promise to be manifest. And in the final outcome of the fullness of what God has called you to do. You will live and not die, the Bible proclaims, and do all of the works of God. God’s trajectory for the church and for us as pray-ers and believers is that we would steadily be moving up in Him.
Don’t mind how you feel or what goes south tomorrow.
Stay the course!
Stay in there!
Stay with God!
Contend to be in His Word… to hear His Word… to proclaim His Word… contend to let your vocal chords resonate with life.
The Bible says death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love to speak words of life or death will experience the results thereof.
Experience of lesser-known rapper…
I heard something just recently about a couple of rappers. One was a very well-known rapper. And the other rapper was lesser known. The lesser-known rapper opened for the more well-known rapper. The lesser-known rapper said that when he completed his performance, he began to walk off stage. Before he got off stage, he sensed inside of himself, “I should stay and watch.” So he watched the well-known rapper do his performance.
The lesser-known rapper must have had some experience with God or had grown up in a home where he experienced and knew about spiritual things.
From where he was watching, he could see the rapper, the stage, and the audience. He said that while he watched the well-known rapper rap, “scales” came off his eyes. He listened to the rapper speaking out his words. And then in a moment, the scales came off his eyes. And all of a sudden, he could see into the spirit realm. He saw something like smoke coming out of the rapper’s mouth. And he said, “I saw curses, and foul negative death-filled utterances come out of his mouth.” He looked at the audience and they were singing along and saying the same curses and negative utterances back at him.
Life and death are in the power of the tongue…
And I thought that was interesting. Life and death are in the power of our tongue! And we must contend to pray in the spirit. We must contend to speak out faith decrees. We must contend to worship. As Kathy was leading us in worship, I couldn’t help but remember where the Bible says that He gives us songs of deliverance. In other words, when we go looking for answers out there, oftentimes the Lord is saying, “No, you are the answer.” You’re the answer to that situation. And the answer is in you worshiping and singing those songs of deliverance.
Sister Kathy interjected…
Pastor Ken, that actually happened to me yesterday morning. I was struggling with some stuff that I’m still believing for. We all have those things, right? And I didn’t have words to pray. But God was like, “There are songs you know.” Right? So I opened my Spotify and found those songs to sing out, because I didn’t have the words at that moment. Songs about how He’ll carry you. There’s great songs about pleading the blood if you need some songs on that. If you don’t have the words, there is a worship song out there to help you sing it out. And there is something even more powerful that happens when you sing it. And it helped me so much. It helped me process things. It helped me pray when I didn’t have words. And He showed up. Of course, He did! And it’s amazing how the situation hasn’t… I haven’t seen it change yet. But I feel differently now. And the hope came back. So use those tools, use those things. Replay morning prayer. Go back and watch it again. Open your Spotify and find something positive to listen to and sing over yourself and over whatever that situation is. And it will help you. It helped me. I know it’ll help you.
Pastor Ken…
That’s so good. On YouTube, we’ve got a playlist just for morning prayer that goes back several years. So you can always check that out. That is so good.
So I guess I want to draw your attention to that. That the solution is inside of us and God wants to release this solution through us. And if you’re bumping up against brick walls or locked doors or it doesn’t seem to be happening or there’s a delay… Remember a delay does not equal denial. Delay is just a delay. And I think sometimes we get in our religious mindset, or we operate out of what we’ve learned up until this point, and we think, “Okay, that worked before that way. Let’s do it that way this time.” But remember, our God is a God of faith. He will not ask you to do something that does not require faith. Because then it would just be in the arm of your flesh and your ability. And He wants to get the glory. So for Him to get the glory requires that we trust Him, that we believe in Him, and that we do it His way.
God is doing some things in a new way…
And so can I just say this morning, there are answers and there are solutions. We’re going to pray some out in a little bit here for your need, for your situation, for your church, your ministry, your nation, your community, that maybe it’s not going to unveil or unfold or transpire the solution that is as it has in the past. But I believe we’re in fact in an unprecedented hour and time where God is doing some things in a new way. At least new to us. He is a God who proclaims in His Word that I’m doing something new. Will you not be aware of it?
So for us, it’s always to seek Him, to turn our attention to Him and to let Him mentor and coach us up on that way that leads to life and blessing and promotion and fulfillment of His plan and realization of the dream in your heart and what you know God wants to do.
Aimee Semple McPherson was an innovator…
I jotted down something that I heard recently. It’s an account of the great minister Aimee Semple McPherson. Amy, of course, was a powerful evangelist and preacher in the early 1900s. And at the time, she literally shocked the world. But she shocked the world by prophetically innovating the Gospel into the mainstream world. She was the first to use radio as a vehicle to reach the masses. She had the first megachurch, that being Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, which was designed to reach the masses. Nothing like that had ever been done before on that scale.
She was the first to use the arts to share the Gospel and even used elaborate theater productions to do her preaching.
We’re on the precipice of something new…
So you can kind of see here how the Spirit was innovating. He was giving new ideas. He was inspiring with new perspective, new songs, new solutions. He was dropping and sowing seeds that were going to birth a new era in the church age. And that’s where we’re at right now. We’re on the precipice of something new that we’ve not seen before. And I believe it has to do with the outpouring of the glory. I believe it has to do with the restoration of the gifts of the Spirit in a new way, a resuscitation of the gifts of the Spirit. I believe it has to do with the works of Jesus: signs, wonders, miracles.
The Pastor Folu said yesterday where the reapers catching up with the sower, where you plant a seed and there it is later that day. The harvest! God’s not limited by time or space or your one degree from college or whatever you bring to the table naturally. He’s a God as Ephesians declares in 3:20, who is able and in fact wants to today in your life and situation, “do exceeding abundantly, above and beyond what you can ask or think.” But He needs us to believe. He needs us to ask what we know to ask. He needs us to synchronize with Him because He wants to innovate. He wants to recreate your life, maybe your business, maybe your job, maybe your ministry, maybe your whole outlook and how you see yourself.
Maybe you’ve got it wrong and He wants to make it right. The world is in a very precarious point in history that will require not what we have attempted to do, even the church that is up until now, but will require something that is inspired from none less than heaven itself.
Aimee Semple McPherson…
So this goes on to say that she was the first to use the arts to share the Gospel and elaborate theater productions to do her preaching. During the Great Depression, Aimee outdid the government in feeding the poor of Los Angeles and had multiple ministries that facilitated this. I think that she was probably a hundred years ahead of her time. She was in the world during the Great Depression, and she had these prophetic, innovative ways to deliver and to reach the masses with the Gospel.
And here’s the thing…
What’s going on in the world today is going to require something beyond what we’ve done up until now. We need these kinds of heavenly solutions so that we can actually reach people and fulfill all that God intends to do in our generation.
